In essence Cheshire West was laid to rest.
The true nature of Article 5 - hand in hand with the 1966 Practice Statement - meant a return to the past. No bad thing.
The interpretation of the MCA and it’s Code of Practice will be changed so much, they they will have to be revised considerably.
I agree that there’ll need to be updates and new guidance, but the MCA code and the DOLS supplement were written well before Cheshire West, so if anything they’ll be back in vogue.
My favourite judges in this area have always been DJ Eldergill and Mostyn J (also Lieven J recently). I’m sure they’ll be happy with being vindicated. I asked Anselm at a conference years ago how Mostyn got such bad press when there was hardly a fag paper between them. I can’t fully remember the answer but think it was along the lines of, “It must be how we say it.”
We should write our laws based on what we want to achieve as a nation and ensure compliance with relevant international treaties as a secondary consideration. It’s foolish to build a legislative regime on the shifting sands of ECHR case law.